What is SEO and Advantages of SEO in the Digital World

There are over 2 million blog posts that get published every day, which means that 24 blog posts are being published every second. This also highlights the matter that while you were busy reading these lines, 216 blog posts have already been published. Now, this data is only for the blogs that are being posted via the WordPress platform. If we were to count all the blogging platforms, then this number would be much higher.

But you shouldn’t be left out of the race knowing the tough competition out there. However, on a given day, more than 2 million searches are conducted on Google and hence ranking on the first page of Google search results is what everyone is fighting for. Many businesses go bankrupt if they don’t show up themselves on the first page of Google Search results. But the ones who do are the ones who thrive and grow exponentially.

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

What is SEO

Though we all know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimisation” but what do we really need to optimise? It may vary from optimising the design, writing or the attached links and many things more than this. Let’s start with knowing exactly about the SEO – it is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a page or a blog post on Google’s (and other search engines) unpaid results. Or in other words, Search Engine Optimisation is known as the process of optimising your content in a way that search engines show up your website on the first page if anyone searches for a certain keyword.

SEO is the kind of magic potion, you need to pour into your content so that whenever someone searches for a certain keyword, your page/website shows up on the first page of Google.

How does SEO works:

Now that you are aware of the basic knowledge of Search Engine Optimisation and the advantages of SEO, let’s take a detailed look at each of its components. But there are two forces of SEO which you need to know and choose according to your needs.

Types of SEO

There are two types of SEO which is like knowing your house from inside and outside for a better cleaning process.

Black Hat SEO

People wish to get rich or earn quickly over the internet end up following the Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation. This type of SEO will optimise your content solely for increasing the ranking on Google.

Black Hat SEO will break many rules to make your website or webpage rank on the first page of the search engine. Though this kind of strategy leads to too many spams and crappy pages, which ruins the chances of building a sustainable thing in the future.

However, you would be able to make few brands very easily in the process of doing Black Hat SEO, but you would need to be on a lookout for ways by which you can break the rules for ranking your page on the first page of Google.

White Hat SEO

On the other hand, White Hat SEO is the best way to build a sustainable business. As this type of SEO focuses on humans or your target audience. If you will the process of White Hat SEO, then you will be able to experience the real advantages of SEO. As it focuses on disseminating quality content to the audience under the guidelines of search engine rules.

You can also have a quick glance of the strategies that are followed under both the kinds of Search Engine Optimisation:

Black Hat SEO strategies are:

Duplicate Content

Invisible text and stuffed keywords

Cloaking or re-directing the user to another site or page

Links from sites with non-relevant content

White Hat SEO strategies are:

Relevant content

Well-labelled images

Relevant links and references

Complete sentences with good spelling and grammar

Standards-compliant HTML.

Unique and relevant page titles.

How to Do White Hat SEO?

On Page Optimization

On Page SEO is mainly concerned about the factors that are focused on increasing the google rankings mainly by optimising the headlines, content and the page structure.

Off Page Optimization

Off Page, SEO is all about behind the scenes to work the goes into making a page rank on the first page of Google. It depends on the kind of sources that were used creating a blog, social networks and similar kind of blogs in your industry.

Both this kind of Search Engine Optimisation is different from each other but you need to make it both right to rank on Google.

To understand both these two terms clearly, here’s an example: Imagine that your house has a nice garden but the living room is quite a mess. In this way, people will like the look and feel of your house from outside but they will return very quickly on seeing the living room.

Same is the case with On-Page SEO and Off-page SEO. If people visiting your website didn’t like the inside of it, they will bounce back. And higher will be your bounce rate(number of visitors leaving your site on an instant) worse will be your ranking on Google.

Now that you know the difference between both On-Page and Off-page Search Engine Optimisation and the advantages of SEO, let’s know the key points that go into both of it. ‘

Components of On-Page SEO:

Content:

“Content is the king,” said Bill Gates in the year 1996. So google ranks your page according to the quality of the content it has. As it wants to deliver the user the best content he/she has been typing the keywords for. Which means that your content should be your top most priority if you want to rank above other webpages on Google. It is similar to selling a bad product with good marketing or doing the SEO of bad content.

Quality:

Adding all the important aspects that go into making the content better, descriptive, and more in-depth. You can also come up with new and fresh ideas that will make your content unique. Try to include all the important ingredients for making quality content.

Keyword research:

This is one of the most crucial parts of SEO as all your content will depend on the keywords that are being searched on Google(and other search engines). What makes keyword research the foremost thing to do before beginning an article is its usage. Ideally, you should use the targeted keyword in the headline of your post/blog and throughout the article.

As people will be searching for specific keywords on Google, you need to spend most of your learning about finding the right keyword for your article and what can be the best way to begin your leaning from this link.

Keyword and its usage:

Google becomes smarter with each passing day and starts a new trend altogether and then changes it in anytime. But don’t try to stuff your article with too many keywords as it will work opposite for you. As long as your keywords are placed strategically (headlines, URL and meta description), you don’t need to mention the same keyword in your article for tons of times.

Keep your content fresh:

Keeping the freshness of the content is one way to increase the traffic on your post/article. Your content needs to be in-depth and descriptive. Though it’s not a necessity to post two blogs in a day or a week. Even if you are able to update your posts with new information on a regular basis, your work is done. However it is very important to publish on regular basis, you can still get good results if you post fresh and descriptive content once a month.

Answer Directly:

Remember finding direct answers to your keywords, when searched on Google? This is the best way to attract Google to show your post above others and a visitor to click on your post/article. This is the reason, why descriptive guides have become more popular than the articles which have difficult words and fancy/unexplainable words. Don’t try to make your article complex and try keeping it simple and clear for anyone to understand and grasp the whole meaning out of it.

Selection of Keyword:

90% of the SEO functions around the selection of the right keyword. This is the most important part of the SEO and requires a detailed analysis of the whole brand, its website and what the content is all about. Whatever be your post/content, but if you don’t choose the right keyword that explains it all, you have already lost the race. The selection of the right keyword is a continuous process and demands continuous evaluation of the performance of a certain keyword.

Tips to find the right keyword:

Focus on the intent: Instead of focusing on what a user is typing over the Internet, try to identify what they are looking for. Let’s understand this through an example:

Title tags:

These are the same as the headlines of your daily newspaper. Make sure that your title is clear and crisp. Every page on your website must contain an H1-tag (heading of the first order) to make google clear about your page.

Meta description:

This is the excerpt that shows up under the very headline. Make sure that it points out everything you have in your blog post. Your meta description can tell if SEO, has been done to its best or not.

Example of a NotOptimised Meta description:

Example of an Optimised Meta description:

Mobile Friendly website:

As we have moved to an era of big-screen smartphones, you need to have a mobile-friendly page or you will lose the race.

Anchor text:

This is one of the important parts of SEO and it matters. Anchor text adds to the authenticity of your page as you will provide your audience.

Schema:

It is a subset of certain HTML tags that help you in improving the way search engines display your content over the internet. Schema is just a collaboration of various search engines.

Subheads:

Subheads are one of the most effective ways to make a great landing page. They help you structure your content and gives a visitor/reader reference points. Not only they help in making your content lucrative but also helps in improving your SEO. Also, it’s easily available on WordPress.

Architecture:

This brings us to the last but of one the most important part of SEO. Though this part involves too much of coding that goes into creating a great structure of a website, there are a few simple things that everyone needs to take care of to increase/improve their SEO rankings.

Your website must load faster, as people are impatient in this digital era, and they will quickly jump off to another website to fulfil their requirements.

Your website must be a place to provide good user experience, as it will attract a reader to interact with your content for a longer period of time.

Since the whole world uses a smartphone, your website too needs to mobile responsive. A good mobile-friendly design will make your content, easily accessible and available on the go.

The more available and accessible design of your website would be, the higher it will rank on Google.

Components of Off-Page SEO:

Authority:

It’s all about the authority you have over other websites as a popular name or a company which is widespread and is the talk of the town.

Authority over Domain: Take an example of the domain name “pepsi.com.” This domain name in itself is authoritative. It is because everyone has heard about it and the brand is popular on all media channels.

An authority on the page: Page authority relates to the authoritative content on a page or a blog post.

Bounce rate:

The bounce rate of the website is simply the measure of how long a user /reader has spent time on the website before leaving it immediately.

The math is quite simple for Bounce rate – The quality of content, loading time of the website, usability, and alluring the right kind of audience, are all part of the determining factor of an increase or decrease in the bounce rate. You can also decrease the bounce rate by adding a video section to it as it will engage your audience for long and hence increase the stay time of a user on your website. This will, in turn, increase your Google rankings.

The Identity:

“Your brand identity is your ticket to glory.”

Henceforth, you need to have a recognisable and authentic brand identity which will have a huge trust signal for all the search engines.

For example, if your tires get punctured on a road trip and you are in a dire need of tyre replacement, then in this kind of scenario, which brand will you prefer, an unknown tyre brand name or trusted brand names like “Goodyear Tires, MRF and so on?”

Clearly, you won’t be taking a risk by opting the tyres from an unknown brand.

Though making and establishing a brand needs the investment of time and strategic planning, you can always speed up the process by following the right principles and creative marketing.

The Quality of links:

It’s good to provide links, as this will make your content more authentic and helpful for a reader to gather all information. However, you should always opt for quality over quantity.

Conclusion:

Make sure you do the research for finding the right keyword correctly. Then you should use the keyword data optimise your title tags and descriptions on the page. And everything should fall in place if you will follow the right things correctly.